ChrisNotes

Quarterly Planning

I wrote about The Common Denominator of Success and I agreed with Mr. Gray that the key to success can be boiled down to two things:  A burning desire (purpose) and good habits. 

If you put me on a Waterboard and aske me what is the most important habit to form, I would divulge the secret:  Set aside fifteen minutes every day for reflection and planning.  Hobbs calls it "Solitude for Planning."  It should be so obvious, yet hardly anyone does it. 

The psychologists tell us that our brains focus on the goal that we give it.  (Psycho-Cybernetics, Maltz)

The Time Management folks tell us to write down three things we want to accomplish the next day before we go to bed at night.  (Andrew Carnegie, I think)

Maltz also teaches us that it takes twenty-one (21) days to form a habit.  This one will change your life.

Seawolf class submarine

Seawolf class submarine, originally uploaded by friedmad.

There is so much to learn about the Web 2.0. If you have not explored Flickr, you must.

I'm currently reading Wikinomics. In addition to being a very interesting book ,similar to The World is Flat in its currency, there are hundreds of references to the New Web that we need to know about.

Private Client Lawyer

Have you ever read anything by Russ Alan Prince?  You probably have even if you don't recognize the name.  He writes a lot for Worth Magazine and has 20 or more books in publication.  His gig is to survey HNW people and their advisors then write on his findings.  What he says is based on extensive research. 

In The Private Client Lawyer, he reveals that HNW people, many times, do not follow the advice of their Advisors.  In many cases, the Advisor comes as a referral from a trusted source, has all the credentials, is very successful and experienced, yet their clients don't do what they are told.

I say, no wonder.  Who likes doing what they are told?  There are a number of lessons here.  Three of the findings from the research as published in this article:

1. Advisors do a poor job of getting Clients clear on their goals.
2. Advisors do not design plans that are congruent with Clients' goals.
3. Clients do not understand the technical solutions that Advisors propose.

How should Advisors change?  They should spend a lot more time discussing what the client wants to accomplish.  They should make sure that every solution they propose be directly related to solving a Client's concern.  They should spend more time educating and explaining technical solutions.  If the Advisor is not particularly adept at any of these essential client relationship skills, the Advisor would do well to invite another person on to the team who has these abilities.

More Partner Income

One of the most popular law firm related blogs is More Partner Income orignally written by a man who taught me how to be an entrepreneur, Tom Collins.  As founder and President of Juris, Inc. he developed Law Firm Business software that grew to dominate the mid-size firm market in the USA.  He realized that making good accounting software wasn't enough to get lawyers to make their practices profitable businesses so he began to write about how to do so. 

The result has now been taken over capably by Brian Ritchie since Tom sold the company to LexisNexis and retired. 

There's at least two ways Private Client Advisors can make more money.  One is develop more business (stick with Chris on this one); the other is to catch the money that is falling through the cracks in your firm's policies and procedures and MPI will show you how.

Communication: The Power to Connect

Today's we look at The Power To Connect by Teresa Easler <website>.   The book goes into the process and thinking behind preparing for an important communication event.  This can be a Client meeting, a speech, a presentation of CLE, an important letter- anytime you need to get your point across.

The overall theme of ChrisNotes is going to be how to grow your professional practice as a Private Client Advisor.  The way I can help you is by sharing what I have learned about Selling, Networking, Referral Cultivation, Planning, and Communication. 

Next week, we will get into the nuts and bolts of why Advisors sometimes fail at growing their practice at the pace that they want to.  Poor communication is a big reason.  This book will help you.  It provides a logical, step-by-step approach to preparing and organizing your communication.

Easler achieves this with a one-page worksheet.  Eight boxes are laid out in two columns.  In each box, you write the answer to a question that you ask yourself as you compose your communication.  Or as Churchill said, "prepare your extemporaneous remarks."

1. Who is your audience?
2. What do I want my audience to remember?
3. How do I want the audience to feel after my speech/letter/phone call, etc.
4. What action do I want them to take?
5. What do I appreciate about my audience?
6. What are the existing obstacles to this communication that I need to overcome?
7. What can I say that will benefit my audience?
8. Who do I have to be?

You want to be a more successful advisor?  Order the book, sign up for an online training, or best of all, attend Easler's Workshop.  You will be a better communicator because you will use this tool before every important opportunity to talk with someone or a group of people. 

I Owe a Lot to Strategic Coach

The purpose of ChrisNotes is to provide education, inspiration, knowledge, skills, attitudes, and habits to Private Client Advisors.  (See definitions)

If the content and message of this blog resonates with you, I believe you need to enroll in The Strategic Coach Program.  I have a voluminous Success Library that contains works by hundreds of authors.  Even given that, I believe that Dan Sullivan surpasses them all when you consider how well he synthesizes and integrates the personal achievement universe of ideas and combines it with his original concepts.

Boiling it down to a 250 word blog entry, here is what I have learned from Strategic Coach. 

1. To be successful, you must manage your time.  The Time Breakthrough
2. Your job should be doing what you love doing.  Unique Ability: Creating the Life You Want
3. The easiest path to happiness and success is through strategic planning.  (The Goal Cultivator Series is no longer available for purchase-- he wants you to sign up for the program to get it.)
4. Capture your wisdom and package it for sale- stop giving it away for free.  The D.O.S. Conversation and Great Value Creator Escape (no longer available).
5. Once you get good at selling your wisdom, you can sell your process to the competition.  That is, once you learn how to bake the cake, you can start selling the recipe.  This is the focus of the Coach 2 Program.  Only open to qualified applicants who have completed three (3) years of Strategic Coach.

Strategic Coach is one of the most important competitive advantages that a Private Client Advisor can have. 

"Bear" Makes it Awesomely Simple

My friend John Spence <website> (his nickname was "Bear" when we played Rugby together at UF) says his unique ability is "Making the complex awesomely simple."  He has the most extensive Success Library of anyone I know.  He makes his living reading business books, chewing them up and digesting them for his clients in terms of seminars, workshops and personal coaching. 

Last week he blogged on The Four Most Important Things I Have Ever Learned.  He encourages his readers to comment with four most important things of their own.  I responded with mine, but I realize now I can't keep it to four things.  There are at least a few more lessons that are too important to omit- they are impossible to prioritize off.

My original four:

1. Cultivate great relationships
2. Always be learning
3. Tell the truth
4. Today not tomorrow

I have to add:

1. Form good habits and become their slave.
2. The less you eat, the longer you will live.
3. Learn from your mistakes.
4. Give yourself solitude for planning every day.
5. Save 10% of everything you earn.
6. Take a lot of vacations.
7. The world expects you to do the most with what you have.
8. Do not tolerate negative people.
9. Rid your life of unacceptables.
10. Lighten your load.

I am going to keep thinking about this and adding to and editing this list.  Maybe it needs to be 100 items long.  Thanks, Bear- a worthwhile exercise. 

High Probability Selling

I rate Jacques Werth's book right up there with the most important Success books I have ever read.  This hugely under-appreciated work was revolutionary when published in 1992.  Today, I believe that the marketplace is coming around to his way of thinking. 

People don't like to be "sold" but they love to buy things.  So why would a company train its salespeople to spend time trying to convince and persuade anybody who can fog a mirror that they should buy their products and services?  Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to only spend time with people who say that they want and are ready to buy what you are selling?  That is what High Probability Selling (HPS) teaches us to do.

For the HNW advisor, this lesson is invaluable.  Sophisticated, wealthy people are approached constantly by people presenting ideas, opportunities and flat out wanting to sell them something.  This wears on them even more than on average people.  This creates a wonderful opportunity to distinguish ourselves!  Let's be different!  Let's just tell our clients what we do and what we have for them and ask them if this is something that they want.  There you go!  That's the secret of HPS. 

What other wonderful benefits accrue to the Private Client Advisor who follows this discipline?  They don't feel rejected.  They feel more professional and like an equal who is just bringing an item of value to another person's attention.  Werth's message is simply, "Selling causes resistance." 

I promise more ChrisNotes on HPS.  In the meantime, read some of Jacque's blog.  And remember:  There are two kinds of sales- the easy ones and the ones you don't get.

Mastery

No Success Library is complete without Mastery by George Leonard. [Wikipedia Entry] How does one get better at something?  You study, you practice, you work at it, you copy others, you get feedback, you make corrections, you learn from your mistakes, you constantly make small, incremental improvements.

In this book, Leonard teaches us how to systematically approach Mastery in anything.  It may be a sport, in music, in writing, in a subject, in becoming an expert- the process is the same.  You work and nothing happens.  You work, nothing happens.  You work at it longer, nothing.  Then one day: Boom.  You make an incremental jump in effectiveness, understanding, skill, whatever. 

When you understand this, it is so much easier to deal with your negative thoughts that creep in to your brain, "I'm not getting any better."  Yes you are.  Just stay at it.  Get started, don't quit. 

Another gem I take from this book:  The world is so big and fast moving it is impossible to keep up with everything.  So, pick your field.  Keep learning.  Specialize and narrow your focus even more.  Put in the time.  Pretty soon, you will be a genius.  And the World will notice.

Time Power!

In these first few weeks of ChrisNotes, I will introduce you to the most important books I have stubled upon in my quest to make myself successful.  Right behind Greatest Salesman is Time Power by Charles Hobbs. 

Hobbs was the expert that led the Day-Timers time management workshops back in the 1980s.  He provides essential definitions:

1. Time Management is the act of controlling events.
2. In managing our lives, we need congruity which is, "balance, harmony and appropriateness among the events in your life."
3. To get things done amid our hectic schedules requries "a concentration of power which is the ability to focus on and accomplish your most vital priorities."

He then lays out the logical structure for organizing your life.  It starts with your highest beliefs (Unifying Principles) and moves into practical examples and questions that help you create a framework for writing down and working on your goals.  The beauty is how Hobbs helps you integrate your unifying principles into lifetime goals and ultimately into a prioritized daily action list.

Ben Franklin taught us in his Autobiography to break big projects into smaller, manageable tasks.  Hobbs shows us how to do this by separating the process into two parts- first you consider your long range goals and decide on what part you can focus on today.  Then, after you make your list, you ask yourself another set of questions that helps you prioritize your to-do list.  This is significant because it is a different brain exercise to identify what you need to do than to decide which is most important and which to work on first. 

The other concept that I LOVE is the Theory of Accessability: If a goal is continually at hand and visible, the chance of you achieving it increases.   I believe that you can write down some goals, stash them in a drawer, pull them out a year later, and you will find your subconscious has worked to achieve many of them.  Given this, think what you can do if you have your well-written goals where you can read and revise them on a regular basis.  The book suggests that you set aside 15 minutes of solitude for planning every day.  This item has been on my to-do lists for the last 25 years.  On most days, I am able to check it off as done.